Leaven of Malice

Robertson Davies wrote from a now perhaps antiquated time and world view, still with nuggets of observation that make his writing worth a visit.

What’s Wrong with Airport?

In grade ten in the 1970’s, Toronto, I was set to write a book report for my Canadian literature course (still a novelty at the time). I chose, rather cheekily, Arthur Hailey’s Airport. The teacher looked disappointed and I defended my choice: “It’s even inspired by Toronto airport. And it was an Oscar-nominated movie!” Neither point held much truck with her. Instead, she calmly replaced it with a copy of Robertson Davies’s Fifth Business.

A Game-changing Novel

It would be going too far to say it changed my life but it certainly upended my reading game. Fifth Business deserves its own blog post, but I will say the plot- and Davies’s observations- never left me. One of my favourite similes from the book was the reaction of a board of directors (if I’m recalling the moment accurately) to a plan to which they remained unimpressed. Davies described their reaction thusly": “like cows looking at a passing train.” Even this simple observation seems steeped in his rural Ontario roots. Love it.

The Salterton Trilogy

Fifth Business began his famous Deptford trilogy but it was not his first. In the 1950’s he penned the Salterton trilogy: Tempest-Tossed; Leaven of Malice; A Mixture of Frailties.

I came across copies of the first two books tossed away from a school library culling its collection. Davies’s background growing up in southwestern Ontario, with acting (he trained in England), as a newspaper editor, and as a teacher, all inform the novels (as they do the Deptford trilogy). And there’s a relevant heavy dose of the protestant church, familiar to me and my upbringing.

Some Well-observed Davies-isms from Leaven of Malice:

It would probably be unjust to Miss Laura Pottinger to describe her as a busybody: she preferred to think of herself as one who possessed a strong sense of responsibility toward others.

… he made an exception of stewed prunes which he thought of as regulators, or gastric policemen.

… and as the food they ate between six and eight could not possibly be called dinner, it was usually referred to as “the evening meal.” [Note: I grew up with this phrase in our household. As I did with the term “gracious living” below.]

Dutchy knew that as a prof’s wife she ought to make some advances in what she was unselfconscious enough to call “gracious living” and Alcohol, though bad for the poor, was probably expected in academic life.

Miss Vyner said nothing, but gave him the look of bleak, uncomprehending boredom which the unmusical wear when they are trapped among musicians.

… English with the peculiar intensity of English people abroad.

… and the old wires gave forth that nasal, twangling sound peculiar to senile pianos and Siamese cats.